The government on Thursday extended due dates for filing of for the financial year 2017-18 (FY18) and 2018-19 (FY19). Taxpayers can now file GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C for the FY18 till December 31, while the deadline for FY19 has been extended till March 31, 2020.

GSTR-9 is an annual return to be filed yearly by taxpayers registered under the Goods and Services Tax (GST). And, GSTR-9C is filed by those whose annual turnover exceeds Rs 2 crore. It is a statement of reconciliation between GSTR-9 and the audited annual financial statement.

The Centre has also simplified the two forms by making some of the fields optional.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) notified the amendments regarding the simplification of GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C which inter-alia allow the taxpayers to not to provide split of input tax credit availed on inputs, input services and capital goods and to not to provide HSN level information of outputs or inputs, etc for the financial year 2017-18 and 2018-19," finance ministry stated in a release.

The CBIC expects that with the changes and extension of deadlines, all the taxpayers would be able to file their annual returns along with reconciliation statement for the FY18 and FY19 in time.

The previous date for filing of GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C for FY18 was November 30, while that for FY19 was December 31.